Menus, January 15, 2014

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that 

someone, somewhere, may be happy."

H.L. Mencken 

Greetings from Denver Co, where Puritanism is rare, and purity abounds. Although, I could greet you from anywhere else, and purity would probably be abounding there too. Because as undeniably rare as purity is, there's an awful lot of it.
there's lots and lots of-

pure love

and the pure other things that accompany demonstrations
of pure love.

There's  pure weirdness

and pure terror

and there is here in Denver, as in many other places,  an awareness of and insistence on pure food. 

Though not necessarily the non GMO, zero pesticide, no growth hormone, zero additive, organically grown organic kind of food.  I'm happily curled up in a corner of Denver that bounds and bounds again with 

 

pure fun and cuteness,

and pure food around here means, and I quote: "Just plain" as in plain grilled cheese, plain broccoli, plain apples, plain pancakes and plain hot dogs.
I know, there are frustrated cooks out there who call a child with this sort of approach to food a "picky eater" but parents of children who've been tagged with this uncharitable label know (underneath the perpetual frustration) that their children are purists, who prefer food and life to be uncomplicated. They are contented little souls, who are happy with a bag of potato chips, and have no perceived need for adventures in asparagus.
Here is the look given me when I suggested adding vegetables to spaghetti:

I am, apparently, so silly.

This is a challenge for any grown up whose cooking philosophy can be summarized as
"Nourish people. Give them good food. Don't be boring."
 So I enlisted the help of my favorite pure food fan, who agreed to help me poke at the picky eater  recipe files on the web, 

and tell me which pictures she liked best.

And here's what she came up with, and how we've added a little soup or salad somethin to interest the grownups who prefer a more varied spread:


Wednesday: Spaghetti and Salad

We'll be using the simplest and most amazing recipe for spaghetti sauce in the world-canned tomatoes simmered with onion and butter until they form a thick, rich sauce that smells like the Italian restaurant street in Heaven. A simple salad for the grown ups of greens, fresh mozzarella, grape tomatoes and a dressing made from a bit of the red sauce whisked together with  vinegar and olive oil. Here's a trick learned many years ago from the food purist I was lucky enough to have given birth to: we'll put the pasta and the sauce and the browned meat in separate serving bowls. (Or in separate compartments of their adorable little sectioned plates.) That way, the individual diner is in absolute control of what food is on the plate, and so is in a position to prevent any impure touching.


Thursday: Pizza and salad

The link is to the amazing no knead bread recipe that I love breaking out whenever I can manufacture any reason at all to cook for people who don't have to be on any sort of gluten guard.  We'll be rolling out the dough and topping it with some red sauce from last night and "just plain" cheese. Another salad for the grown ups, or, if it's very cold, maybe a quick soup made by adding some beef broth and vegetables to leftover red sauce.







Friday: Quesadillas and Tortilla Soup

See the list of optional additives in the quesadilla recipe? We will not be using those. For at least one or two at the table, the quesadillas will be the just plain grilled cheese on a tortilla thing that a quesadilla ought to be. 
This soup recipe is one of the nicest surprises of the winter, and if there's any cooked ground beef leftover from the spaghetti, it'll get used up in the soup.




Saturday: Cheesy Corn Casserole and Butternut Squash Soup

My assistant menuplanner surprised us all by choosing the picture of this corn casserole from the line up of kid-friendly meals on Disney's family website. We'll make it a  monochromatic meal with butternut squash soup and some sliced oranges and maybe a few carrot sticks. And then we'll ask a two year old to say "monochromatic". 




Sunday: Chicken Satays and Pad Thai

Chances are, we'll skip the very nice looking Tyler Florance marinade and instead soak these little chicken swords in a just plain honey salt brine. We'll also pull the spaghetti trick with the pad thai: noodles will be served separately from the vegetables, hopefully making both noodles and veggies more attractive. 





I hope your week is fun and uncomplicated-
pure, without a hint of puritanical.
I wish for you days of clarity 
in the face of confusion,
happiness 
the middle of sorrows,
and humming a counterpoint 
to each day's chaos,
hour after hour of perfect, pure, 

absolutely just plain peace.